Opaque
by APH Teutonic Knights
Summary: Honestly, Harry didn't really consider this kidnapping, and neither did Newt. It was just removing an abused magical creature from a place that had turned Harry into one. Really. Besides, the papers were signed and everything. AKA, how one Obscurial raised by the best Magical creature expert proved everyone wrong. Obscurus actually weren't inherent killers, really.
1. Blurred

**Hey guys! Alright. Before anyone yells, yes. I am going to update my other stories. Yes, I have been working on them and**

 **working more on them and boy oh boy it's fun rereading a fifty thousand word story (recovery from grace, I'm looking at you) and realizing**

 **your writing was shit when you wrote it near two years ago. Left in the Ice I am continuing, as well, and I also plan to post another HP story**

 **in which Harry is a Lamia, the Basilisk is really just a mother hen, and Snape is surprisingly friendly when he knows Harry's actually Lily's son**

 **after all. It sounds complicated. I plan to make it adorable, and at twenty thousand words it's beginning to really shape up. Which is pitiful because**

 **honestly on this site, twenty thousand words seems like underkill sometimes, even if I'm not near done yet. NOT NEAR DONE. Anywho, yes, I am making a certain**

 **person an Obscurial, and making Obscurials different, because I wanted to, and I really really wanted Newt to adopt this adorable little cinnamon bun.**

 **Pity said cinnamon roll isn't really innocent, but Newt can teach him how to be again. Oh, and can we do a poll? Does anyone want a Real!Percival Graves and Newt**

 **Slash? Because I just read an amazing fic of them together, and I would be happy to comply. I'd just have to figure out how to make Graves kinda!immortal too. Like Newt.**

 **And eventually the little emerald-eyed bundle of adorableness. I can't write tragedy, sorry guys. I can make angst up the wazoo, but no tragedy unless it's**

 **a oneshot. On that note, any requests? Oh! Also! Another HP/BTMN fic in which Harry is the youngest of the bat fam and Dick is not giving up the only little brother**

 **who regularly accepts cuddles anytime soon! So of course they come with to Hogwarts. Okay. Story. Right.**

Obscurus. Obscurial. The two names were interwoven with fear, misery and regret ever since they had come about.

They caused destruction without warning, taken over by the need to make others hurt for letting them hurt. It was, of course, not always true, but it was for enough of them that they were all classified the same. Only one thing was really consistent, Newt Scamander's little-known book 'Opaque; The Child's Plight- A Guide on Obscuri and Their Obscurus' insisted, and that was that the Obscuri should not be treated harshly, lest they lose the will to stay conscious and instead slip behind the Obscurus, making it go mad from lack of guidance and eventually burn out.

There were few, few other encounters after the infamous Credence, but enough to keep the name in the backs of minds, making people, instead of looking for children that could become an Obscurial, turn away. They were too scared of this being that was so, so strong and unlike 'normal' magic. They broke the rules, and for that wizardkind feared them.

It was a pitying fear mostly, the kind that made the fearer at first go 'oh, that's so sad- can't someone help the child? Why won't anyone do anything? Surely this can be fixed' and then it soured into- 'This beast cannot be a child any longer- it cannot be fixed, really, can it? Look at what it's done, look at how terrible it seems' and the Obscurial would eventually burn themselves out with fear while being hunted viciously and with no care for the child it still was. They were feared and therefore not helped.

The worst part, Newt Scamander always thought, was that he always arrived right after the Obscurus became known, and then it was too late to whisk them away into his briefcase, where he could take care of them like he did all his magical rarities. To him, they were another being that he could care for- sure, human beings, but frankly being an Obscurial unlocked a more… animalistic nature in them. It was partially the abuse they had undertaken, and partially it was the Obscurus in them. Having the instincts of a feral beast half the time had an effect on a child's behaviour, whether or not the instincts in question were to lash out or protect itself. No, they were enough like the rest of his magical beings that he could converse and be more relaxed around them, care for them- at least, until what started to seem inevitable happened and they were hunted and killed.

Usually he hadn't even gotten a day, but often it was around the same amount of time as Credence had- half an hour, perhaps an hour or two at most. Never enough. At least he still had the energy to keep trying, what with the Ningyo scale willingly given to him that he had eaten. With that he stayed young and healthy and fit, able to keep up with his creatures. Still, though, the Obscuri were something of a sore point to him- well, as much of a sore point as Newt could have. Not because he never got one of them, that would be inhumane, but because he had never managed to save one.

That was the difference, to him, between him and other 'collectors' of creatures- he took care of his beings, saved them and took care of them, releasing them if both he and them felt it was safe. There were some, of course (Douglas came to mind) that firmly believed they were very much alright out in the world, even though frankly they really weren't and therefore Newt with a heavy heart kept them in the case until the day came when they were less likely to be poached or hunted and he could let them out. He supposed it would be the same with an Obscurial, at least until they could keep their Obscuras under control. Not that it really needed to be under control, not really. At least not the kind that protected. There were two kinds of Obscuras really, Newt had found, and they most of the time pertained directly to how the Obscurial had been abused/ their mentality regarding people. If the abuse had made them simply hate and crave power and salvation through their own hands, their Obscuras lashed out with rage.

If the abuse had driven them to be timid and self-hating, simply wishing to hide and never be harmed and perhaps one day be 'deserving' of care, their Obscurus was one that hid and was far more connected with the Obscurial's human mind. The latter were the types that always hurt Newt the most, because they were nearly always so timid and hoping, often fleeing to enclosed spaces and having to be teased out. They were the ones who Newt got attached to too quickly, and they were the ones who always gave him hope that perhaps this one was the one who he could save and care for- and always they died, hunted and eventually lashing out- because sometimes protection meant lashing out and Newt couldn't blame them at all for it.

The thing was, if he could only whisk one away, keep them safe and happy and fed like all under his care, their Obscurus wouldn't burn them out nearly so easily. He would teach them how wondrous magic was, and they would stop hating it. It didn't get rid of the Obscurus- no, once one was developed, he had discovered, it was something that didn't go away like that- but it made the Obscurus less harmful, less unpredictable, similar to Wolfsbane calming a Werewolf only far more effective and less risky.

Because when an Obscurial burnt out, it was because A, their abused bodies couldn't handle the strain and collapsed far faster. B, They hated magic and Obscurus lashed out at what the Obscurial hated- therefore, their own magic, which was their own selves. D, because of those attacking them and their own eventual hopelessness. It was something that could be stopped. No, not stopped- prevented, eased. There was no need to kill a tame guard dog for biting an intruder, while a wild mutt running with froth on its mouth was a different matter.

Newt had hoped that his manuscript, upon publishing, would halt the negative outlook on Obscurus, but no such luck- unlike his first book, his next was labelled 'Dark' by the Ministry and therefore barely any copies sold. He knew why, of course- the Ministry was the prime hunter of Obscurials and didn't want to look bad as his book had outlined thoroughly the fact that these were children they were hunting, children that could still be helped. It led nowhere. That didn't stop him from trying, though. Just one- just one! Obscurial saved and helped and under his care, his protection and he could prove that Obscurials were not monsters. Perhaps they were beasts, yes, but a beast was only a monster if it killed for nothing but the satisfaction of killing, and all but one of the Obscurials he had met so far held no satisfaction in the people they had killed. (Or not killed). The one that had enjoyed killing was a child that had become very twisted, and in the end the child had killed himself by making his Obscurus burn itself out when exploding.

Newt had barely made it out alive, and for a while he had been embittered by the experience, unsure if he should continue looking for an Obscurial he could save. Of course he continued, however, and afterwards he began to think of the Obscurials more like his most wounded and abused animals- he had before, but now he saw their actions mirrored in the Obscurials almost precisely.

In the end, the incident had just helped him understand the Obscurials more and become all the more determined to help them. Which was why he was here now, fiddling at the device in his hands and murmuring under his breath.

He had picked up on the radar an extremely powerful Obscurial in this area, but it was astounding- this neighborhood was simply so plain, so muggle that it was almost impossible to imagine any magical living here. But there was the proof, sitting on one of the two swings in a rickety, rusting swingset. The child looked as if he was a small, skinny four-year-old, but Newt with so much experience on biology knew the boy was most likely nearing his eighth birthday in a few months.

He had to act now.

Never in all his time looking for Obscurials, trying to help them had he found such a case of malnutrition- more like no nutrition. The Obscurus would burn the boy out within five minutes of using its full, raging power with the child this physically weak- which apparently in no way accounted for how mentally strong the boy had to be, given how emaciated he was along with bruises showing whenever his ragged, hugely baggy sweatshirt slipped. Besides, the power off of the boy was phenomenal.

Newt, given his sensitivity for magic, could practically feel it without the sensor- which wasn't normal. Hell, Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald themselves had been mere blips on his personal radar- this young child was a colossus of magic, and Newt had no doubt that even Credence's Obscurus- the largest he had ever seen, from another child who had insane amounts of magic within him- would be a mere shadow of this boy's. Newt gathered himself mentally, remembering as he usually did what to do with this particular brand of 'Beast'. All abused children were similar in that they weren't very- that was, all abused children had a somewhat different outlook than another.

The very crude base concepts could usually be sorted out into groups much like those of the Obscurus- those who hated and hurt in return and scrounged a way to get revenge against the world, and those who did their best to love and please and simply survive. The latter were rarer, which made the Guardian Obscurus that came from their mindset even fewer. That was what Newt called that type- Guardian Obscurus. The other type he had named Wrathful Obscurus.

The thing was, he could usually tell quickly once he had met a child what their Obscurus was- and therefore if he had a chance. The children with Wrathful Obscurus he so longed to help- because they could be helped, he knew it- but their Obscurus could not be calmed and therefore couldn't be around the rest of his Beasts. He was in charge of all of their lives, and they depended on him. It wasn't like with people, because people could depend upon themselves, and could make their own choices. His Beasts didn't have that right, nor did most of them have quite enough human-like sentience to get along in the human world enough to gain the ability to not depend on Newt. They trusted him, and therefore he couldn't break that trust.

No, those with Wrathful Obscurus he would take to people he could trust- of which there were very, very few- to care for them. That was, once he could manage to keep an Obscurial alive long enough to, one of either inclination. That was why he needed this child to be an owner of a Guardian Obscurus. This child hadn't been found out yet, wasn't being hunted yet and so Newt had a chance to spirit him away from his abusive home and possible hunters, into the safety of his briefcase and the magical sanctuary inside. If he could only manage to get the boy safe without alerting anyone to the fact that he was an Obscurial and that Newt had been there.

So Newt got up and walked to the other swingset, moving steadily and fluidly but slow enough that the boy didn't startle. He could feel the child's brilliant emerald eyes on him (A shade he'd never before seen, much like all the other Obscurials- was it perhaps a trait to have odd or striking eye colours? Credence's obsidian eyes had sometimes held shocking glints of aurel color) as he walked, but he made no moves to show any discomfort or insincerity. Finally he made it to the other swing and winced somewhat exaggeratedly at the shrill creak it made when he sat.

He was rewarded with an almost silent puff of air exhaled in cautious mirth from the child, and gave his usual quirked, somewhat awkward grin as he tried not to bollocks up the conversation too badly. He turned to look at the child, and saw a tiny grin slip away as the child looked back up at him, now trembling slightly.

Newt nearly shook his head in frustration. One of the worst parts was knowing that these children had been badly, badly hurt and lived in an environment where they definitely were not safe, given that they had suppressed a part of themselves to a point where they had become warped and dark.

"Hello," He greeted the boy, and watched as green eyes regarded him carefully, before a fragile smile crept onto the Obscurial's face.

"Hi," the boy murmured back, and Newt felt his smile become more genuine. That was, of course, when the boy's hair shifted slightly, raven mess that it was, and Newt had to quickly deal with several world-tilting realizations.


	2. Filmy

_**Yeah. I'm back. I'm going to update my stories. apologies for the wait. I'm going to add more stories. This going to be fine, promise. Blanket disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts. If I did... a lot of things would be very different. It probably wouldn't be a children's book mainly because part of my writing style is to focus on how these situations would actually cause trauma and how the characters would work through it. That, uh, seems to be the focus of a lot of fanfic writers. Anyways, enjoy.**_

 _"_ _Hello," He greeted the boy, and watched as green eyes regarded him carefully, before a fragile smile crept onto the Obscurial's face._

 _"_ _Hi," the boy murmured back, and Newt felt his smile become more genuine. That was, of course, when the boy's hair shifted slightly, raven mess that it was, and Newt had to quickly deal with several world-tilting realizations_

One, this was Harry Potter. Two, Harry Potter was an Obscurial. Three, Harry Potter was abused to the point of becoming an Obscurial. Four, Harry Potter's famous scar had two Dark, even Blood-level Sacrificial Magicks of the ancient variety in it.

One of them was something he'd only come across in various writings about creatures that could manipulate souls; a Horcrux. It was a tiny, weak one, clearly accidental, and it was being kept in the scar by the other ancient, Dark Sacrificial Magick that had clearly been done minutes before their deaths and by someone very close to him in Blood- most likely his mother, if he had heard anything about the genius Muggleborn witch that was true.

A Blood Sacrifice. He also had no doubt that was what was keeping Harry's Obscurus in- the Magick was designed, from what he could guess, to keep anything Dark inside the child, evil or not. While it had probably saved the child's life, Newt had no doubt that when the Obscurus did finally break free of the Magick and demolished the Horcrux (Which it would definitely do, being that all Obscurus absolutely abhored other Dark things in their Obscurial's body- Newt had seen an Obscurial bitten once, and the results were not pretty for the werewolf and the Obscurial, who had turned to Obscurus Forme until the Lycanthropic infection was purged, evidenced by no further sign of Lycanthropy, though the child had only lived through three months before finally being brought down by Ministry issued hunters.) it would lash out in an absolute rage, most likely near maddened by its forced captivity.

Still, it made Newt want to just whisk the little Obscurial away and into his briefcase and give him a 'habitat' and food and care until Harry could laugh and smile freely and not look like he would break if a strong wind whipped by.

"Harry," he began gently, and the child's head whipped back around to stare at him with an odd look.

"How do you know my name?" Harry questioned, but he didn't really tense up and Newt was immediately worried about that.

He could tell already that Harry had the correct type of Obscurus- the glint of psychopathy required to have a Wrathful Obscurus wasn't present in his eyes. Although there was a dead look that was more along the lines of 'You can't do anything to me that I haven't had done to me before, nothing that I'm not used to or expecting.'

It was worrying. Suddenly Newt feared of something more than he expected. It was not a good thought. "Lots of people do- what do you think of magic?"

Harry blinked then tilted his head and clearly said in a monotone voice, "Magic isn't real."

Newt shook his head immediately. "Of course it is!" He exclaimed happily, before noting the flinch the boy gave at the louder tone and calming himself down a little. "Here, look." He took out his wand and flicked it at the swings, muttering, "Scourgify." The swings cleaned themselves and with another decisive jab of the wand they were greased a little, just enough to stop making awful sounds when swung upon.

Harry stared, eyes wide, and Newt was surprised to see no fear in his eyes. The tiny boy tested the spell by swinging back and forth a little, eyes still widened slightly, and he came to a rest still looking at Newt with a rather odd look.

"Why…" Harry trailed off and Newt smiled at him, awkwardly nodding his head for the boy to continue. "Why'd you show me that?"

Newt sighed, kicking off the ground to sway back and forth on the swing as he thought. He caught the slightly hurt and abashed look from Harry and quickly explained. "Err, sorry, I'm just trying to think of how to put this…? I'm not very good with people, better with animals, see…."

Harry lost his hurt look, so Newt supposed he understood. "Well, there's loads of people with magic out there, see. We just keep hidden."

Harry nodded slowly, and Newt watched with sudden fondness as he thought it over. "Because of things like the Salem hunts in America?" He finally asked, and Newt nodded a little.

"Things like that. There've been a lot of people like Hitler, too, who don't like muggles- people without magic."

"Muggle.."

Harry wrinkled his nose.

Newt nodded. "I know, offensive. In America they're called No-Maj, if that's any better. Short for non-magicals. Here in England, Muggles."

Harry nodded, then crinkled his eyebrows, looking a bit bitter though it didn't entirely seem to be directed at Newt. "So- if I'm a muggle and can't do magic…"

"Who said that?" Newt asked, genuinely surprised at the conclusion Harry had drawn. "You've got magic." Harry stared at him, eyes wide again.

"I do?"

Newt nodded emphatically, slightly thrown that the boy wasn't going rabid like the typical Obscurial at the thought of having magic or admitting to it. "But- I don't think I've ever done anything like that…" Harry admitted, his emerald eyes narrowing slightly in thought, a perturbed pout forming.

"Haven't you?" Newt asked, sure that _something_ had to have happened a good few times. There was no way, even with the Obscurial and the blood magic, that nothing had happened. Though seeing how Harry was reacting, Newt was beginning to suspect something. "Harry, your relatives. They're not nice, are they?"

Harry paled and looked away, tensing, so Newt swiftly got out, "I'm not asking for them, I'm asking for you. I think it's important, Harry. I'm not going to get mad whatever you say."

Harry stared at him for what seemed to be a long time, before he looked away again and didn't answer. "Well, you really don't have to answer right now," Newt finally said, shrugging just a bit. "But it might be important. You see, Harry, _if_ your relatives do… hurt you, can I ask how they… _would_ justify it?"

The child tilted his head and Newt amended his statement. "I mean, _why_ do they say it's okay to do that to you?"

"Because I'm a freak," Harry murmured lowly, immediately jerking back a little and snapping his mouth shut, though Newt had heard already. It was clicking together in the man's head what must've happened, now. Much as he didn't like the picture the puzzle was forming at all. "Harry, did something happen… maybe recently, within the past few years? Something you couldn't explain. And when your relatives heard, or knew, they blamed you?"

Harry was suddenly deathly pale, and shaking slightly. Newt knew he was close. But even though it was important to get Harry away, he wasn't going to do it by frightening the child so badly. Sure, sometimes his Beasts weren't happy with the fact that he had to keep them, but he always did his best to make the transition easy for them.

But then emerald eyes that were glinting with panic dropped as the child began to speak. "I didn't mean to do something freakish again, I really didn't…"

"I know," Newt reassured him, wanting to get the story out before he started persuading Harry as to how his magic was not freakish or bad. "I'm not going to be mad."

Harry nodded shakily, and then murmured softly, tone quavering, "I didn't mean too.. I just, she was mad, my teacher… she always gets mad 'cause she thinks I'm being rude, but I'm not _supposed_ to do good in school… she was _scary_ and all mad like Aunt Petunia gets… and then, she just- couldn't yell anymore."


End file.
